LOS ANGELES — Dancing With the Stars has done something it has never done before in more than two decades on television: suspended one of its own professional dancers. Val Chmerkovskiy, the 40-year-old two-time Mirrorball champion and one of the franchise’s most recognizable faces, will not dance on next week’s show after a now-deleted social media post joking about Will Smith’s infamous Oscars slap — a joke producers concluded was aimed squarely at judge Carrie Ann Inaba.
BBC Studios, which produces the ABC and Disney+ competition series, confirmed the decision in a statement issued on Saturday, October 17, making clear that the issue was conduct, not choreography: “The well-being of everyone who works on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is non-negotiable. Val’s social media post was inappropriate and does not reflect the values or standards expected of anyone connected with the show. As a result, he will not participate in next week’s show.”
A SAMBA, AN ILLEGAL LIFT AND A HEATED NIGHT
The chain of events began on Tuesday, October 13, during the show’s first-ever “Super Bowl Night,” a football-themed episode that ranked among the most heavily promoted of the season. Chmerkovskiy’s wife, fellow pro Jenna Johnson, performed a samba with her celebrity partner, Glee star Harry Shum Jr. During the judging, Inaba penalized the couple for an illegal lift — a moment in which a dancer’s feet leave the floor during a style where the rules do not permit it. The deduction, and the tone of the critique that came with it, immediately split viewers online: Johnson’s supporters argued the call was harsh, while others defended Inaba’s reading of the rulebook.
It is worth underlining what did not happen next. There was no confrontation on the live show, no argument at the judges’ desk and no public complaint from Johnson or Shum. Instead, the dispute moved to where so many modern television disputes now play out — social media, in the hours after the broadcast ended.
“YOU ALMOST SAW THE FRESH PRINCE ENTER THE BALLROOM”
In a TikTok post that has since been deleted, Chmerkovskiy wrote: “You almost saw the Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night.” The reference needed little decoding. “The Fresh Prince” is Will Smith, and the imagined ballroom entrance invoked the most notorious moment of the 2022 Academy Awards, when Smith walked on stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock over a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Posted the night after a judge had publicly penalized his own wife, the joke read as a playful threat with a violent punchline — and screenshots of it spread far faster than the deletion could contain.
Inaba responded on Instagram, in a post that has also since been deleted. According to Deadline, she shared images of Chmerkovskiy and Smith alongside a pointed question: “So this is what we are doing now?” Neither post stayed online for long, but by then the exchange had escaped the feeds of the two people involved and become the dominant DWTS story of the week, eclipsing the dances themselves.
THE APOLOGY
On October 17, the same day BBC Studios announced the suspension, Chmerkovskiy issued a lengthy apology. “In a moment where my instinct was to defend my wife, I made a poor decision to reference a meme to ‘keep my wife’s name’ out of the conversation, without stopping to think through what else that reference could imply, which was genuinely never my intention,” he wrote. “Carrie Ann certainly didn’t deserve to get caught in the middle of my bad judgment, and I hate that she was.”
He closed by trying to redirect attention back to the show itself: “The last thing I want is to become a distraction from an important week or from the incredible work my dance partner Jenna Dewan is putting in. Please send Carrie Ann, Jenna, and the whole DWTS family lots of love during Dedication Night. I’ll be watching and cheering everyone on!!”
WHY THIS SUSPENSION IS A FIRST
Professional dancers have missed weeks of Dancing With the Stars before — injuries, illnesses and family emergencies have all forced last-minute partner swaps over the years, with troupe members and fellow pros stepping in on short notice. Celebrity contestants have withdrawn mid-season, and a few have been engulfed by off-screen controversies. But according to multiple reports of this week’s decision, a pro dancer has never before been suspended by the production as a disciplinary measure. In a franchise built around its pros as much as its celebrities — they are the teachers, the choreographers and, for many viewers, the main reason to tune in — benching one of its biggest names is a genuinely historic step.
The speed and firmness of the response say something about how the show now operates. The post appeared within hours of the episode; the suspension was announced within four days. In an era when a cast member’s social media following can rival the programme’s own audience, BBC Studios has drawn a bright line: what a pro posts about a colleague is treated as workplace conduct, not private commentary. Other reality franchises have fumbled comparable moments for weeks. DWTS settled this one before the next live show.
JENNA DEWAN DANCES ON — WITH ALAN BERSTEN
The suspension lands in the middle of one of the season’s most emotional weeks. Tuesday, October 20 is Dedication Night, when each celebrity performs a routine honoring someone important in their life. Chmerkovskiy’s partner, actor Jenna Dewan, will now dance with Alan Bersten instead, performing a routine dedicated to her mother, Nancy. Bersten knows the ballroom well — he is a Mirrorball champion in his own right — but his season appeared to be finished: his partner, celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis, was eliminated back in week two.
For Dewan, the challenge is very real. Dedication Night routines are usually built on weeks of partnership — a choreographer who knows exactly how a celebrity moves, trusts and emotes. She and Bersten have days, not weeks, to build that chemistry, and they must do it while the story surrounding their performance is her regular partner’s suspension. How the judges score the emergency partnership, and how viewers respond to it, will be one of the night’s defining threads.
WHAT TO WATCH ON TUESDAY
Chmerkovskiy’s suspension covers one week, so — barring further developments — he is expected back in the ballroom the following week, and the show has given no indication that Dewan’s place in the competition is affected. The open questions are about tone. Will the show acknowledge the suspension on air? Will Inaba, a judge since the very first season in 2005, say anything from the desk? And can Dewan and Bersten turn an emergency pairing into the kind of Dedication Night moment — raw, personal and generous — that this theme week exists to produce? Tuesday night will answer all three.
Source note: This original BuzzDaily report was written from coverage published by PEOPLE, TheWrap, Parade and Unilad on 18 October 2026, the BBC Studios statement of 17 October 2026, and Deadline’s reporting of Carrie Ann Inaba’s response. Quotations are reproduced from the statements and posts as reported by those outlets. The analysis of the suspension’s significance is BuzzDaily’s own framing.